The IOC has assembled a five-person committee that will explore legal options for punishing Russia. That committee is also charged with reinvestigating the World Anti-Doping Agency’s report, issued yesterday, as well as determining how to discipline the people named in the WADA report. And any official named in the report — as well as the entirety of the Russian Ministry of Sport — is banned from attending this summer’s Olympic games in Rio. Those sanctions may not be limited to Rio, either; the IOC has asked the Olympic winter sports federations to freeze their preparations for any future events that Russia hosts.

The WADA report found that Russia tampered with urine samples stored in bottles previously thought to be tamper-proof during the Sochi games. The report also provided evidence that Russia’s cheating went beyond the Sochi games and doping was prevalent in multiple Olympic sports.

Sanctions haven’t been determined

Though his agency essentially chose to delay action, IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement that the organization “will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organisation implicated.”

Those sanctions are yet to be determined and are heavily dependent on a hearing scheduled this Thursday at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. This court will be hearing the appeal of 68 Russian athletes who were banned from this year’s Olympic games last month by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the body that oversees Olympic track and field competitions. The IAAF had suspended Russia in 2015 following a previous WADA …